Reply by Dan Krager

Not a LOT of experience here with rustic, but since no one else has responded I’ll jump in. If you’re looking for rustic, then I assume that a rough finish is OK. The table top you might want to go to 180 or so for less texture that holds grime. I don’t see how you will satisfactorily stain a rough piece like that, as your predecessor found out. All your sanding marks have now been added to the fray and has set you up for more trouble. If you have carefully sanded with the grain from the beginning, you might be OK yet. Here’s a thought. Why not plane the table top by hand using a cambered plane which leaves the surface clearly hand hewn but without the ugly sanding marks. You can’t do that for the rest of the table, but the top is what shows mostly Include the edges. Then you might just have a “looker”!DanK